Abstract

The College of Science and Engineering at the
University of Minnesota is today one of the
finest technological institutions in the country. It
all began in 1851, when the Territorial Legislature
founded the Minneapolis-based university
as a preparatory school where, for the munificent
sum of $4 a quarter, an elderly clergyman
instructed a handful of local children in the three
Rs. The technical subjects developed in fits and
starts, spurred by the passage of the Morrill Act
in 1862, which offered states (Minnesota had
taken its first baby steps as a state in 1858) large
grants of land in exchange for college-level
work in agriculture and vocational training in
engineering, industrial drawing, and other “mechanic
arts” subjects. With the financial backing
of state senator and flour magnate John Sargent
Pillsbury, who joined the university’s board of
trustees in 1863, school officials effectively
shelved plans by the state’s agricultural interests
to create a second campus elsewhere. Pillsbury
Hall, a monument to his efforts to grow the
university in Minneapolis, opened in 1890.